Recently, the company wanted to add a location here in Chicago, and the alderman of that ward flat-out turned them down, with the mayor supporting him. The best part, though? The proposed location was just a few blocks south of a major gay neighborhood!

I believe the mayor of Boston also sent a letter to Chick Fil-A saying they would not be welcome. The problem with that is it would be a direct violation of the 1st amendment, which would actually be deterimental to the advancement of LGBT rights. It just gives ammo to the right to say 'look see! them liberals are infringing upon our rights and trying to tell us how to think!'.

Discriminating against gay customers or employees would be unacceptable (although as I understand it most states actually do not have any laws protecting sexual minorities within the work place) but no one can stop someone from opening a chicken restaurant because the owner doesn't like gays.

By the way, in case anyone is questioning the Christianity of the company... I remember a few years ago they gave out Veggie Tales toys with their kids meals. For those not aware, it's a show designed to teach kids Christian morals by replicating Bible stories (in a more family-friendly manner) and explicitly discussing Bible verses.

To say their views do not affect their business is to turn a blind eye to reality.

Recently, the company wanted to add a location here in Chicago, and the alderman of that ward flat-out turned them down, with the mayor supporting him. The best part, though? The proposed location was just a few blocks south of a major gay neighborhood!

Now see, this is really bothersome (and also illegal, as Corpsefister pointed out). Not withstanding the fact that by this moral standard of governance you would have to ban the creation of virtually any new business everywhere (since almost everyone in this country is Christian), it also sets a bad precedent. I don't think it is that hard to imagine some future mayor of, say, Hopkinsville (which is located in Christian County, Kentucky) using the Boston-Chicago precedent as an excuse to prevent Microsoft from opening an office there because their chairman of the board is an agnostic.

You are much better off encouraging your friends and family to personally boycott the company.

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iamntbatman wrote:

On Friday I passed an important milestone in my teaching career: a student shat himself

I agree that the mayors of these cities don't really have a leg to stand on when it comes to keeping the business out. But the alderman? He's supposed to directly represent the will of his ward's residents, and his ward is primarily LGBT. He was obligated by his job to oppose that franchise - and this is the important part - at that location. You can't prevent white supremacy groups from having a meetinghouse somewhere in the city, but you sure as hell can stop them from putting it in the middle of a major African-American neighborhood.

Aside from inciting possible violence (for the record, inciting speech is not protected under the first amendment), it's just a terrible business decision, putting a Chik-Fil-A in the middle of a LGBT neighborhood. It'd go out of business in a couple months, and then the storefront would be empty again. Toxic businesses only hurt the economic standing of that neighborhood, and again, the neighborhood is what the alderman is responsible for.

Again, I agree that the mayors of Boston and Chicago have no real business telling the company they aren't welcome in their cities, but that's because cities are, of course, large and diverse. Neighborhoods within the cities tend to be less so. And seriously, how stupid of a business decision can you make, putting a franchise near a LGBT community?

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843182 wrote:

biohazard the band is not is when you want to add it to tell you that there is

Anyway, I support the fact that city mayor's refuse to let them add new store locations. The world doesn't need anymore backwards ideas.

America needs garden-variety abuse of power such as this less than it needs bigots, to be honest. A mayor who uses zoning regulations to act as the Ideology Police is much worse than a bigot running a chicken sandwich chain.

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iamntbatman wrote:

manowar are literally five times the band that fates warning are: each member is as good as fates warning alone, then joey's bass solos are like an entire extra fates warning

Yesterday was the birthday of school pal and I met the chick of my sigh (I've talked about here before, the she-wolf I use to be inlove with)... Maaan she was using a mini-skirt too damn insane... Dude you could saw her entire soul every time she sit...

Anyway, I support the fact that city mayor's refuse to let them add new store locations. The world doesn't need anymore backwards ideas.

America needs garden-variety abuse of power such as this less than it needs bigots, to be honest. A mayor who uses zoning regulations to act as the Ideology Police is much worse than a bigot running a chicken sandwich chain.

I don't think I can agree with this, but it's ultimately a judgment call, I suppose. As you allude to, there are relevant considerations to be made for and against restricting Chick-Fil-A's opportunities to open new restaurants. On the one hand, it's prima facie wrong to interfere with people's freedom to hold opinions and support their like-minded fellows, as it is to interfere with people's opportunities to add to their wealth and the wealth of others. (I'm not saying Chick-Fil-A necessarily would have been successful with respect to the latter; I'm just referring to the mere opportunity to be so.) On the other, it's prima facie wrong to sustain an environment where active bigotry is socially and/or legally acceptable.

Maybe an analogy would make my position clearer: If a large business decided today to donate a large portion of its earnings to white supremacist organizations, I would be somewhat uneasy with the business's being penalized, in accordance with the reasons given above, but I ultimately wouldn't have much difficulty finding it warranted. (Nor do I see any relevant difference between actively supporting racism and actively opposing the so-called "gay agenda.") It would seem implausible to claim that the suppression of bigotry could lead to the suppression of legitimate opinions from which people stand to benefit, or the suppression of which would be an arbitrary abuse of power. As far as I can tell, in other words, there's no slippery slope that leads from "The government ought to impose its will on bigots who actively promote social inequity" to "The government may impose its will on people who promote, or even privately embrace, unpopular albeit harmless (even potentially beneficial) opinions."

It might seem arbitrary to penalize Chick-Fil-A in particular, without taking direct measures to limit the influence of the resourceful bigots they support in the first place, but I still tend to view it as a step in the right direction. (I'm planning to attend a protest at a Chick-Fil-A in my city, in fact.) It conveys a message that needs to be conveyed: People who think the LGBT community is not entitled to the same rights as heterosexuals need to understand that their views are morally unacceptable.

Ugh, I always find it uncomfortable when people casually compare the plight of homosexuals to the remarkably grim struggle of African-Americans in this country (though I do really dig the phrase "Gay is the New Black," but more for its kitschy novelty than accuracy). And granted, you didn't explicitly draw that comparison--but you did strongly hint at it. It's certainly true that both have been discriminated against, and both can easily be labeled an "out-group," but I get antsy when people start implying that individuals being denied marriage contracts stems from the same prejudice that once declared a fellow human being having the worth of three fifths of a person.

Ugh, I always find it uncomfortable when people casually compare the plight of homosexuals to the remarkably grim struggle of African-Americans in this country (though I do really dig the phrase "Gay is the New Black," but more for its kitschy novelty than accuracy). And granted, you didn't explicitly draw that comparison--but you did strongly hint at it. It's certainly true that both have been discriminated against, and both can easily be labeled an "out-group," but I get antsy when people start implying that individuals being denied marriage contracts stems from the same prejudice that once declared a fellow human being having the worth of three fifths of a person.

It's just a parallel that's... at best... uh... Uncomfortable.

Thanks for letting me know. It didn't occur to me that people might have that reaction, and I'll think twice before mentioning them together in the future.

Analogies can be dangerous, but strictly speaking, I think the only thing required for mine to work is the fact that racism and homophobia are both examples of (to put it somewhat mildly) arbitrary, unjustified discrimination. It doesn't require the extent of each group's suffering to be comparable, for the motives of their enemies to be exactly alike, or even for there to have been any actual suffering at all; I could've used an imaginary example in which Company X donates its earnings to a group (supposing it has any influence) who campaigns for minimum wage laws to be waived with respect to all people named Carl.

I can't decide which is more annoying: Jumping on the bandwagon because this is a hot issue or those with their noses turned skyward at the commotion because they claim to have known about this for years before in spite of never making mention of it, even in casual conversation. The personal solution for me is to find better friends because... damn.

As far as I can tell, in other words, there's no slippery slope that leads from "The government ought to impose its will on bigots who actively promote social inequity" to "The government may impose its will on people who promote, or even privately embrace, unpopular albeit harmless (even potentially beneficial) opinions.".

There doesn't need to be, because the former statement is horribly wrong to start with. The first amendment guarantees freedom of speech, not "freedom of speech except when that speech is bigoted." City mayors have absolutely no right to act as de-facto ideology regulators, and bigots have every right to run businesses. "Promoting social inequity" is not illegal, especially if it essentially amounts to making obnoxious statements about gay marriage. Don't like it? Don't eat at their store.

Discriminatory business practices, of course, are a completely different thing and the government has every right to prevent them. But there is no law against a bigot owning and operating a business, nor can there be, nor should there be.

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iamntbatman wrote:

manowar are literally five times the band that fates warning are: each member is as good as fates warning alone, then joey's bass solos are like an entire extra fates warning

People posting pictures of them eating at Chick Fil A and people posting pictures of them kissing a member of the same sex in front of Chick Fil A.

I'm tempted to go on a date with a guy at Chick Fil A just to mess with both sides.

I'm getting so sick of it. I defriended a few relatives who were posting pics of themselves proudly standing in front of Chik-fil-a, talking about freedom. It's not about freedom of speech, it's about the money you spend there going to hate organizations. I can't fucking stand Christians most of the time, at least, the ones who think gay marriage harms them in any way.

Quote:

I've got to agree there. As obnoxious as Chik-Fil-A are being, it is their right to express their opinion. I would consider freedom of expression to be close to the most paramount of freedoms.

Again, it's NOT about the dude's opinion. It's about funding hate organizations.

It's all rather amusing to me, since I've *dons hipster glasses; draws condescending smirk* known about Chick-Fil-A's affiliation with pseudo-hate organizations like The Family Research Council and The Marriage & Family Legacy Fund for years now. In fact, to their credit the company has been pretty open about where they've been donating their premiums through their charitable arm, The WinShape Foundation, since 2003--perhaps moreso than other businesses. I have literally no idea why all this is coming out now, especially since the catalyst quote from President and COO Dan Cathy, (“We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit.") is way more innocuous than stuff he's said both before the CNN article and after.

Perhaps the recent Gallop Poll which showed more support than ever in this country for marriage equality is a major contributor to the recent flood-of-interest towards where Chick-Fil-A sends its extra nuggets? Just a thought.

One of my favourite radio programs while driving is The Diane Rehm Show I found a year ago on the local international channel here. While my feelings about this as a complete outsider in virtually all the possible ways are mostly disinterest and amusement (I do fully support LGBT rights, including marriage, but this is just stupid and in the USA, hence no interest), there was some dude on the show yesterday who talked briefly about the Chick-Fil-a case. Now, I'd say that the CEO has the freedom of speech, and that the company, naturally, has the right to use their money just as the executive board wishes, but the fellow mentioned that they have actually given money to some organization that funnels it forward to foreign countries, and that some of it has ended up in the treasure chests of an Ugandan organization that lobbies for death penalty for homosexuality there. If that is indeed true, I'd say they are walking on VERY thin ice morally, christians or not.

Focus on the Family's Family Research Council (one of the main organizations Chick-Fil-A donates to) spent a reported $25,000 to lobby against a congressional bill which stated Uganda's proposed DEATH TO GAYS law "threatened the protection of fundamental human rights." Now I'd say that's pretty fucking despicable to lobby against a bill that's basically just saying "killing=bad", no matter which way you try to spin it (FRC claims they lobbied against the bill not because they supported the death penalty for gays, but that the bill implied homosexual activity would be internationally recognized as a fundamental human right.) But other than that, I can't find much of anything else on these Chick-Fil-A supported organizations, at least to do with Uganda and the anti-homosexuality laws.

I'm guessing your tale was just an embellishment of the above, but when it comes to these fringey right-wing types, you can never be too certain. I'll keep digging.

Hmm, that might well have been what he meant; once again, I was only paying attention on the level my brain allowed, and that ain't much.

In any case, lobbying against human rights is despicable, especially if it results in an "accidental" by-product of death penalties somewhere else. Sleeping peacefully in the night seems to be easier if your soul has been confiscated by Jesus.

What they lobbied against in that bill was the notion that homosexuality is a natural right of humanity. They said "well killing just for being gay isn't right, but we don't want people to think that being gay is right in itself".

With that said the whole situation does disgust me and I've spent the last few days arguing with close friends so I don't plan on going any further with it but basically everybody is a shitty person except me.

Then boycott it. I just don't much like the idea of a city mayor banning the business.

Indeed.

Bigots are fucking pathetic but to tell a business they can't set up there isn't the right way to go about it. Let the people take care of it via their buying power. If you don't agree with them, don't visit their place of business.

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Wahn_nhaW wrote:

I hate nothing more when good metal is ruined by sprinkling shit flakes all over it.

Its one persons opinion. Most people know that the people who run chikfila are bible thumping conservatives, and most have known that most likely they wouldnt support same sex marriage, but so do other companies like walmart and exxon mobile. http://www.businessinsider.com/most-ant ... ica-2012-7

And yes, this about one mans opinion because this whole facebook style fad protest didnt start until the chairman made those remarks about him not supporting gay marriage. Get over it you idiots, its not like employees are throwing it in your face when you order a sandwich. Not to mention people are campaigning to pull them out of colleges and neighborhoods. I'm not religious, and I dont care for anti-homophobic remarks, but Im against people bitching and complaining to remove an optional restaurant for me to eat at. And yes, I'm for equality too, but these idiot facebook-occupy-style kids are coming off as preachy and pushy as the christians they complain about. The only reason to not eat chik fil a is because most of their combos are over 1000 cal. which is ridiculous, but their chicken biscuits are pretty stellar.

As far as I can tell, in other words, there's no slippery slope that leads from "The government ought to impose its will on bigots who actively promote social inequity" to "The government may impose its will on people who promote, or even privately embrace, unpopular albeit harmless (even potentially beneficial) opinions.".

There doesn't need to be, because the former statement is horribly wrong to start with. The first amendment guarantees freedom of speech, not "freedom of speech except when that speech is bigoted." City mayors have absolutely no right to act as de-facto ideology regulators, and bigots have every right to run businesses. "Promoting social inequity" is not illegal, especially if it essentially amounts to making obnoxious statements about gay marriage. Don't like it? Don't eat at their store.

Discriminatory business practices, of course, are a completely different thing and the government has every right to prevent them. But there is no law against a bigot owning and operating a business, nor can there be, nor should there be.

I'll concede to you, although I think "horribly wrong" is an overstatement. I don't think it's too difficult to envision a scenario in which there appear to be relevant (not necessarily decisive) considerations against permitting free expression - moral considerations, not necessarily legal considerations (although morality should inform law). Propaganda and hate speech, for instance, can warp and harm. They can be poisonous and dangerous. Or, to put it more weakly, they can factor into a network of causes that leads to avoidable suffering. It's at least a compelling moral principle that avoidable suffering ought to be prevented when the alternative involves greater suffering. If X causes more avoidable suffering than the prevention of X, then the idea that X ought to be prevented gains plausibility; and one could argue that it'd be arbitrary to exempt X from this consideration on the ground that it consists in the expression of an idea or sentiment as opposed to the exertion of physical force. Causation is causation.

But it could also be said against this that, given the limitations of our knowledge, rules of thumb are our best guide in minimizing suffering; and as a rule of thumb, people can generally be expected to ignore odious expression. "Sticks and stones" etc. And utilitarian calculation is hardly the only aspect of our moral decision-making.

In any case, I'm more persuaded by your response to my original statement.

(However, as was pointed out in a subsequent post, there's more than just "obnoxious" expression taking place. But I managed to overlook this in my last post.)

I don't think it's too difficult to envision a scenario in which there appear to be relevant (not necessarily decisive) considerations against permitting free expression - moral considerations, not necessarily legal considerations (although morality should inform law). Propaganda and hate speech, for instance, can warp and harm.

I don't agree with that, but I think it's also necessary to point out that Christians promoting hate think they ARE being moral, because they take their morality from the Bible. And with so many Christians in the government, I think it's especially dangerous to talk about free expression in this way, because I'd bet my last dollar they'd base those restrictions on their religion and impose them on everyone, regardless of religion.

Megalowho, your argument seems to be fast-approaching a debate about the merits of the first amendment (and the concept of free speech) itself, which I am not really interested in having right now - suffice to say that there are many very good reasons why we don't set up some sort of sliding scale of "harmful speech" as judged by the government and permit them to restrict that which is deemed "sufficiently hateful" or whatever. That aside, the first amendment exists, and a town mayor has no right to harass a business owner for exercising his first amendment rights, no matter how obnoxious, ignorant, or bigoted his statements may be.

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iamntbatman wrote:

manowar are literally five times the band that fates warning are: each member is as good as fates warning alone, then joey's bass solos are like an entire extra fates warning

I haven't eaten Chik-Fil-A in years and never plan to. As a pro-gay marriage guy, I could pretend to respect the right to the opposite opinion but giving funds to those hideous "pray the gay away" organizations really crosses the line. The fact that most employees probably don't share the views of the corporation keeps me from trolling the actual restaurants but I still think it'd be hilarious to give their CEO a lap dance just to watch him squirm.

Megalowho, your argument seems to be fast-approaching a debate about the merits of the first amendment (and the concept of free speech) itself, which I am not really interested in having right now - suffice to say that there are many very good reasons why we don't set up some sort of sliding scale of "harmful speech" as judged by the government and permit them to restrict that which is deemed "sufficiently hateful" or whatever. That aside, the first amendment exists, and a town mayor has no right to harass a business owner for exercising his first amendment rights, no matter how obnoxious, ignorant, or bigoted his statements may be.

Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you. I don't really have anything to say about the first amendment; I just want to stress that, from the standpoint of moral philosophy (particularly on a Rossian perspective, which tends to inform my outlook), the duty to respect another person's freedom of expression is an undeniable duty, but it nonetheless has the potential to conflict with other duties distinct from it - that is, if I'm correct to understand the moral experience, a la Ross, as involving a plurality of duties, as opposed to a single normative principle or self-consistent set of principles.

The only significance of this would be that it isn't necessarily purely wrong to restrict a person's freedom of expression, though it may be wrong "all things considered," which you've helped persuade me is indeed the case here, with the Chick-fil-A controversy. It's a trivial point that I mention only because certain of your words appear to suggest otherwise.

Another example, just to help illustrate the pluralism I'm alluding to: We have a moral duty not to cause pain. But we also have a moral duty to be truthful. (And we have a number of other duties.) So, when we consider ourselves justified in telling a "white lie" so as to avoid hurting someone, the decision to do so may be in accordance with our duty "all things considered," but it would nonetheless bear some measure of wrongness on account of its violating the duty to be truthful - although, if we're right, this measure of wrongness is ultimately insufficient to override the duty not to cause pain. What we morally ought to do isn't in every case purely right, though it's still what we ought to do. That's one of the reasons it's often appropriate for us to feel a tinge of regret or uneasiness even when we've acted rightly.

Ross might seem a tad eccentric at first, but I think he's more faithful to the common moral experience than many other moral philosophers.

I won't say any more on freedom of expression unless anyone happens to ask; there's probably no need to argue over the trivial point I'm stating here, since we're basically in agreement otherwise. Of possible interest might be the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic, which I'll be reading soon:

...And yes, this about one mans opinion because this whole facebook style fad protest didnt start until the chairman made those remarks about him not supporting gay marriage... its not like employees are throwing it in your face when you order a sandwich... Im against people bitching and complaining to remove an optional restaurant for me to eat at... The only reason to not eat chik fil a is because most of their combos are over 1000 cal. which is ridiculous, but their chicken biscuits are pretty stellar.

Indeed! Right on all counts, other than personally I find the idea of a "chicken biscuit", whatever that might be, sounds bizarre and off-putting. But yes - the social opinions of those who make your food is completely unimportant. The gay community on campus once held a BBQ, where they sold a reasonably priced "queer burger". Their name, not mine. I ate it, and left without feeling any more or less progressive. Nor was i bothered to know that my food purchase funded the promotion of people whose issues are of no interest to me.

That's called FREEDOM! If Chick-Fil-A's chairman is stupid enough to publicly endorse values that exclude potential customers, then sit back and watch the business fail. But government officials should do nothing to hasten that process. The economy's shitty enough without denying a new business.